Such a nail is known from German patent publication DE-C-3 244 243 to ENDER, which discloses a rigid intramedullary nail having two through holes at the distal end of the nail and whose direction is not parallel and not orthogonal and which is further defined in the specification to be at an acute angle, e.g., of 10° or 60°.
A further nail is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,041,115 to FRIGG et al., which discloses an intramedullary nail having three through holes at the distal end of the nail which are disposed at 90° to each other.
A disadvantage of the known nails is the fact that the distal holes are unnecessarily far from the distal nail tip which produces a nail-weakening effect, and prevents engagement in very short distal fragments.
A further disadvantage of the known nails having parallel holes spaced closely to one another (i.e., known nail hole spacings equal to 3.5(d)) is the fact that holes in the bone surface are too close to one another.
Still a further disadvantage is that widely spaced parallel or orthogonal holes offer the surgeon limited options in the choice of the position of the screws, such as might be necessary to avoid neurovascular structures.
A further disadvantage of these known nails is the fact that there is an unnecessary loose fit to the hole in the nail by the screws which traverse the nail. This allows a toggling of the traversing screw in the hole, in turn allowing an increased torsional twisting and other motion at the fracture site.
The invention as claimed aims at solving the above described problems/disadvantages and also aims to facilitate secure attachment in short fragments at the distal end of the intramedullary nail.